Flirt
by ch19777
Summary: How to pick up women and to taunt law enforcement professionals for years - Red John style. A nifty little piece of introspection, written for the September challenge at the Jello Forever board with the prompt "smile".


_This is my second entry for this month's challenge over at Jello-forever. The prompt is still "Smile" and strangely enough it only occurred to me that this story fits the bill after I finished it._

_I don't really like reading creepy serial killer stuff, let alone do I write about it. I wouldn't have written this story either, if my dear friend Sarina hadn't infested my mind with contemplations about Red John by asking the question "How do you think Red John proceeds after he chose a victim?" _

_I wrote this in broad daylight to keep the monsters under the bed at bay and it still seems pretty creepy to me... I hope at least Sari gets nightmares as a punishment for putting me (and whoever is reading it) through this. :P_

_**Warnings: **__Red John's POV = creepiness galore._

_**Disclaimer: **__Yep, I totally own the show. Only on DVD, but for now that's enough to make me happy. _

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_Repetition and recollection are the same movement except in opposite directions; for what is recollected has been, is repeated backwards, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward. Repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy, whereas recollection makes him unhappy. _

Søren Kierkegaard,"Repetition"

It begins with a smile.

The corners of your mouth twitch until your lips are in the perfect shape to lure the current object of your desire. It is important to display enough admiration and friendliness to make you stand out in a world where people usually don't smile at strangers, but not so much for her to become suspicious of your intentions. Finding the right smile for each and every woman and situation is an art that you perfected in all those years of practicing.

By the time when you're initiating the first gentle contact with a woman, she never saw you before. You, on the other hand, already know her inside out. For weeks, sometimes months even, you were her shadow. You know her schedule, her relationships, the places she frequently visits. It never ceases to amaze you how predictable people's actions become if you only study them long enough. You know what she loves and hates, what makes her happy, what is lacking in her life.

You want to see her true self to make sure she is worthy of your special attention. You are particular about your taste in women, but you are not shallow. For you, it is rather a question of demeanor than of looks.

You choose the lonely.

The misunderstood.

The self-conscious.

Or the ones that feel betrayed or neglected by their loved ones.

Most of the time your initial evaluation of a women proves to be true. Your insight into human nature hardly fails you. So eventually the day comes when you start making plans to win her over. The plans turn into a fantasy that you unreel again and again in your mind and refine it until you have a perfect mental script for a perfect night of satisfaction.

Only then, when the last little detail is clarified, you are ready to set your plan into action. You wait for her at the perfect time and at the perfect place. And you smile.

You are the helpful stranger who is there when she struggles to carry her heavy shopping bags up the stairs to her apartment.

You are the man who showers her with attention when all the others fail to even recognize her.

You are the friendly guy who offers her a clean handkerchief and a ride home when she's crying on a park bench after yet another fight with her boyfriend.

You are the new, concerned teacher of her rebellious teenage son.

You are the credit counselor who offers a solution to the dilemma that threatens to destroy her life.

You are the lost older brother she's been searching for all her life.

Only once you used your own identity as the colleague of her husband.

You are flexible; you adapt to their needs.

But no matter which story you serve up, it - in combination with your well-groomed appearance and your winning smile - permits you entrance to her life. Once inside, you go on pretending.

You let her babble.

You offer advice.

You soothingly talk to her.

You make her feel special.

You earn her trust.

You thank her for the food and drink she fixes you, even though you won't touch them.

You make sure not to leave any fingerprints. One mistake in the early days of your favorite pastime, the imprint of your thumb on a tumbler, made you learn your lesson. You can't always be the first one at the crime scene to destroy evidence without raising suspicion.

No matter what some of the so-called experts might say, you don't want to get caught. Your actions are neither a cry for deliverance from uncontrollable compulsions nor the result of an immense craving for recognition. You simply enjoy misusing people's trust and toying with them until the last spark of life vanishes from their eyes.

But before you reach that final phase of a relationship, you lull the woman into a false sense of security and savor the thrill of anticipation until you are unable to wait any longer. Your time has come when she retreats to the kitchen or simply turns her back on you or when you excuse yourself to use the bathroom. Unnoticed by her, you bring out your trusty razor-sharp knife and a fresh pair of rubber gloves. You shiver with excitement when you slip into your disposable coverall to shield your expensive suit from stains.

You make sure to confront her in a place with no possibility of a surprising escape. The look on a woman's face when she first sees you in disguise is almost as satisfying as the act of killing itself. Some women understand the danger they are in immediately, when a reflection draws their attention to the knife in your hand. You silently applaud their sharp intellect, but those victims are no fun. You prefer the ones with a look of confusion on their faces that very slowly turns into horrified realization.

You like it when they ask you in a shaky voice what is going on. Bless the women who try to convince themselves that you are joking when you stand in front of them with a deadly blade. A shrill giggle that is barely able to hide the panic underneath is one of your favorite sounds in the world.

You take a step forward and naturally she takes a step back. You move into her direction and she shies away again. It's a dance made for a man and a woman in a secluded, dark house or on a moonlit wood glade and it only ends when her back hits an obstacle and your arms can finally capture her.

With the knife on her throat you are able to direct her to any place you want her to be. If you are inside her home, it is usually the bedroom. You are a little old-fashioned, in that regard.

At the latest when you tie her to a chair or the bed, she begins to beg and scream. She doesn't know that you are not a rapist and you don't tell her. Listening to her rapid, panicky breathing and her screams or feeling the delicate gooseflesh of despair spreading out on her skin is much more stimulating than forcing her to have sex with you.

Sometimes, when a woman quietly and apathetically endures the caresses of your knife, you make short work with her. Other times, if she struggles and fights and therefore is highly entertaining, you take your time teasing her and provide accompanying commentary to your actions.

But eventually each of your victims gets tired and is no fun to play with anymore. Locking your eyes with hers you slit her throat. You untie her and watch in rapt silence how she jerks and gasps until the last hints of life leave her body.

You arrange her on the bed to make her look her best for whoever will have the honor to find her. Then, just because people expect you to do this, you dip your rubber-gloved fingers in the warm blood that still spills from her wounds to paint the comical face that will link you to this killing.

Each time you adorn a bedroom wall, you remember the uproar your little drawing caused the first time you created it. There was nothing calculating or significant about your artistic debut. Delirious with joy and your hands already covered with blood, you did it on a whim. You liked the idea to end a courtship, that began with a smile on your lips, with a smile on a wall.

It was the media that attached an importance to it which you never had in mind. Suddenly you were mentioned in every newspaper or newscast. They gave you a nickname and they almost hoped that you would strike again. You had killed before, but those smiley-less deeds were never featured on the front page of a magazine.

You don't necessarily need the media coverage to make you feel good, but it is a nice side-effect that you learned to appreciate. It gives you the chance to enjoy the riot of emotions you cause without even leaving your home. In return, you present them with more drawings in the blood of your victims.

You laugh at the excuses they come up with to explain your behavior. It's convenient to make you look demented and weak, but little do they know.

You are a well-respected member of the society.

You didn't have a horrible childhood.

You get along just fine with your mother.

You never tormented animals as a kid.

You weren't a bedwetter.

You never had any trouble pleasing women in bed.

You don't feel compelled to kill by God or the devil.

You don't believe that your deeds make the world a better place.

You are fully aware that what you do is wrong, but that is part of the fun of doing it.

You kill simply because you can.

Yes, you do thrive when other people suffer. And yes, having your victims at your mercy sends chills of pleasure down your spine. But in the end it all comes down to one thing: This is a game, one that only you excel in while the other players are doomed to lose again and again. That's the truth about you that everyone fails to detect.

You walk among those who are set out to catch you and you pity their inability to unveil your secret identity or to associate the decade full of your early works with Red John.

You are especially disappointed with _him_. There was a time when you deemed him your nemesis, but not even he, who usually sees right through everyone and has a very personal interest in catching you, has a clue.

You could just settle back and gloat, but you like to tease them. You bait them with hints, feed them with false hopes, change the rules of the game to keep things interesting and worthwhile for you. And they fall for it, embrace every little chance, only to come back empty-handed each and every time.

You observe the members of the team while they discuss your most recent feat and you dally with a new kind of temptation. Not even a week passed since you last courted a woman and usually the ensuing euphoria lasts longer. This time however, the experience wasn't really enjoyable. The girl wasn't hand-picked by you and therefore not completely to your liking, but sometimes you have to adapt the means to the end.

Now you're more than ready to have some real fun and even though you never before chose someone who is a part of your everyday life, the idea intrigues you. It reeks of audacity and that alone is enough to make it irresistible.

You look back and forth between the two women in the room and imagine the marvelously shattered expression on each of their beautiful faces in the moment they recognize that you mislead them for such a long time. You can barely hide a smirk when you mentally follow the trail of the long, silver blade along the soft skin of their throats and revel in the prospective despair of the women as well as of the people who love them.

At the end of your workday you retreat to the solitude of your house to make plans. You already know which of the two women is your next target. The decision was an easy one to make. You can't choose _her_, not yet. She's too precious, too special to use her for satisfying a simple craving for novelty. Besides, without her the whole team would fall to pieces and you don't want this to happen at this point. You still enjoy their determined yet futile efforts to catch you way too much to give her up.

This time, the redhead will suffice.

Two days later you are ready to carry out your plan. You stage a murder in a small town, violently enough for the locals to request CBI assistance. You pull some strings to make sure that Lisbon's team is send out and doesn't arrive before sundown to necessitate a night at the only motel around. One polite phone call arranges a room far away from the others for Van Pelt.

In the dimly lit hallway that leads to her room, you wait for her. She gives a little, adorable shriek that warms the cockles of your heart when you step out of the shadows and into her field of vision. When she recognizes you, she visibly relaxes.

She knows you.

You pose no threat.

She trusts you, would probably trust you with her life.

That thought almost makes you snicker. Almost. You are too versed in your art to give in to silly impulses like that.

If she finds it weird that you follow her into her room to continue your conversation, she doesn't show it. Unaware of putting herself on the edge of a precipice, she takes off her badge and gun and places them on the tiny dresser.

You smile when she confesses that spending the night in the same motel where Red John killed his first victim creeps her out.

Your smile grows wider when the sight of your knife produces that endearingly confused and shocked look on her face that you love so much.

You grin from ear to ear when you step between her and her gun and begin to force her into a corner.

She is a fighter, you have to give her that. Kicking and screaming she puts up resistance for hours until the blade of your knife executes its final, fatal cut. Standing over her, you feel a little sorry. Not about her passing per se, but because your experience with her is over and you now can only relive it in your memory.

Before you step out of the room, you leave your signature on the wall opposite the door and put the badge and gun back on her belt. Grace Van Pelt wouldn't let a stranger into her motel room and face him without her gun. It's that kind of thoroughness that prevents you from getting caught.

In the solitude of your car, you add her to your notional list of favorites. Killing her wasn't as rewarding as watching the look of sheer horror on _his _wife's face when you slit their little daughter's throat, but it is close.

You know that you will be able to live off your current satisfaction for a long time, but eventually the memory won't do anymore. Instead it will make you restless and cranky and before long you'll want to replace old memories with new ones until you get tired of those as well.

There is always a next time and you like it this way.

The expected phone call arrives eight minutes after you lay down on your bed where you officially spent all night. Her body was discovered. You get up, put on a fresh suit and return to the motel room that you just left a little more than two hours ago.

You stop at the open door and take in the scene that enfolds in front of you. She still looks the same, lying on the floor in the messy pool of her own blood. An unfamiliar emotion stirs inside of you as you study her lifeless body, but you refuse to analyze it. She provided some hours of superb entertainment and that's all that matters. You don't have time to ponder impractical feelings like guilt or regret.

Shifting your attention to the living in the room - the forensic people, your colleagues - you notice that Rigsby is missing. You come to the conclusion that he is probably puking his guts out in a remote corner of the motel. The remaining team members evidently all cried before you arrived, but at least they try to maintain the semblance of professionalism.

You step into the room and your nostrils immediately detect the familiar sweet, coppery scent of blood. Ignoring all the other people, you approach Lisbon and can't resist putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She jerks and spins around, ready to take on whoever dares to invade her personal space. She frowns at you with darting eyes and for a split second you believe to see an accusation in her look and you fear she has finally figured out who you really are.

But the moment passes as fast as it came and the tension in her shoulders eases when Jane appears on her side and covers her hand with his own. Refusing to let their subtle display of mutual attraction ruin your splendid mood, you pretend to intently study the smiling face on the wall - the face that taunts them, but that infuses you with pride and buoyancy every time you see one.

"Sir?"

Lisbon.

You close your eyes.

Yes, you would have missed her voice had you chosen _her_ last night, even though she sounds a little shaky right now.

Turning around, you put on a properly defeated and furious expression to mask the killer inside of you. After all, one of your agents just fell victim to the infamous Red John and you can't be caught looking happy about it.

So you routinely play your role of the reliable, trust-worthy supervisor of the Serious Crimes Unit and leave it to the smile on the wall to display your true feelings about the death of yet another unfortunate woman.

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_**A/N: **__I like Minelli. Really, I do. But the idea of Jane being closer to Red John than he thinks intrigues me and Minelli seemed like a good candidate to play around with that idea._


End file.
